e-Medley: November’s Session

Chemistry Department members Brett Bodsgard, Chris Jordan, and Nathan Lien opted to use a free e-text book from OpenStax this year. To open this session they described this project. They learned about OpenStax while at a conference and decided to try it out, hoping to save students from the high cost of chemistry textbooks. They were generally happy with the content and design of the text book and particularly liked the the way its interactivity reinforced the material. Results from a student survey were mixed with some not having used it at all (text was not required reading) and some finding that it was very helpful.
Josh Lallaman from Biology was up next with a description of how he is using McGraw-Hill Connect, an online teaching and learning platform, to connect his students to publisher resources. The program is not free, but it integrates well with Blackboard and provides an interactive experience for his students.

Finally Peggy Johnson, Writing Center Director, along with four of her English 220 students described an efolio project in which student used WIX, a cloud based web development platform, to develop interactive resumes. Much more than a simple resume, these sites enabled the students to showcase their academic achievements as well as their personal development using slide shows and graphics. At the same time students had an opportunity to hone their writing skills in what Johnson described as “public literacy.”